Thanks, Michael, for the creative energy you offer your students and co-teachers on a daily basis!
Check out this fantastic example of engaging students through Total Physical Response! Michael Crisantos, a first-grade special education teacher in Round Lake Area School District, created an individual GIF of himself using a gesture for each letter of the alphabet, based on a phonics program they use. He then created slides, arranging the gifs to spell words in a short sentence. This example is just a still shot I captured – wish I had video to show you – but you can still get the idea. The sentence students had to write was I see Mom.
Thanks, Michael, for the creative energy you offer your students and co-teachers on a daily basis!
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![]() With many co-teachers returning to hybrid classrooms, teacher voice volume can be a distraction for students. For example, If Teacher A is working with a small group of students through Zoom, while in the same space Teacher B is enthusiastically instructing in-person students, Teacher B's loud voice volume may carry over to students in Zoom. Because we want enthusiastic teachers AND environments in which students can easily attend, we need to get creative about this new challenge. Round Lake Area Schools in Illinois gathered a group of individuals to brainstorm some easy solutions. We created a short list of the most practical ideas so that partners can choose what works best for their classes. Which one will you try? Click here for the list and feel free to share! Michael Crisantos, a first-year special education teacher in Round Lake School District, used this clever trick to grab his students' attention this week. During a review of counting by tens, he replaced some of the numbers with photos of his students. When he revealed the slide, the students had to be ready to fill in the number for their spot!
Not teaching counting? I can think of several other ways to use this:
Thanks, Michael, for sharing this idea and for all you do for your students! Students everywhere are struggling with maintaining attention to digital texts. This can occur when a teacher or student is reading aloud while the others are meant to follow along, or when they are reading independently. Of course, if the teacher or student can use highlighting tools or arrows, that can be enormously helpful, but it is not always possible. Lately, I have found it helpful to think about how I might have addressed this if I was with students in a school building, rather than a virtual setting. If so, I might have offered them a colored acetate strip to use in their paper book. Unfortunately, most students don't have access to this type of item at home, so I tried another idea last week.
The touch of tactile interaction is a novel change of pace from using digital tools and increases the number of neural pathways involved in the task of digital reading. Best of all, it is simple and free! ![]() Recently, I used a strategy that I originally posted about in 2013. It was a success then and proved just as effective now! The Slow-Motion Writing Strategy teaches students to expand their descriptive writing by imagining the events taking place in slow-motion.
Students were highly engaged and remembered the strategy over the course of several weeks. The last assessment showed that student writing was much more descriptive! I saw this post last week and finally found time to try it --- and it works! So if you or your paraeducator don't have access to a document camera, or can't use your phone to project, then here is a simple DIY idea. You could also teach students how to do this so that they could show you any handwritten work.
Increase curiosity and engagement with The Secret Answer Strategy. Announce near the beginning of class that you need a volunteer to “hold” onto the secret answer. If you are teaching in-person, place it into an envelope and seal it shut. If you are teaching remotely, create a Google slide, similar to what you see here, and share the link with a student. At an appropriate place in the lesson, ask students an intriguing, close-ended question and have them share their thinking. After everyone has shared, direct the volunteer to open the envelope (manually or digitally) to reveal The Secret Answer. Adding this little bit of novelty can increase attention without distracting from your content or taking time from your pacing.
Here's an awesome idea I found on Twitter and am sharing with Amy's permission. How much more engaged will your students be if they are clicking embedded links rather than traditional urls? This idea is so adaptable to any content or grade level. I just found this on Tuesday but am already working on making a few of my own. Thanks, Amy!
During COVID-19, tic-tac-toe menus and choice boards are an approach to differentiation that is more helpful than ever. Typically, the teacher creates a 3x3 grid and develops nine activities for students to choose from. Usually the choices address a variety of processes and products, including no-tech, low-tech and high-tech. Students can be directed to choose one of the nine activities or aim for three in a row, as in the game of tic-tac-toe.
Menus can be designed to honor the varying circumstances students find themselves in – limited technology access, outdoor opportunities, home alone or with siblings – as well as their various interests. Choice always increases motivation but can be especially effective when the choices are based on student interests. Depending on the platform you are using to teach, you might be able to load a tic-tac-toe menu to a collaborative document and have students work in small groups to fill all nine spaces. Better yet, have them create their own tic-tac-toe boards that include different processes and products, and still meet your learning target. Here's a Google Slide template. Here are a few examples of tic-tac-toe boards that you could tweak to fit your content and students. Even if it isn’t your content area, notice how you can keep the first part of the task and just change the second part. For example, if it reads “Create a rap/poem that informs people about healthy nutritional choices,” you can use the words in red so that you are not starting from scratch. No need to be creative on top of all the herculean tasks you are already preforming! Accessing Text (options for reading comprehension across content) https://tinyurl.com/y9y5eqho Nutrition (specific content example) https://tinyurl.com/y96p4dy6 A collection of various approaches to choice boards with lots of examples https://tinyurl.com/y754lwcf A quick internet search yielded dozens of sites that offer examples. You may find just what you’re looking for, already generously shared by another teacher. Just keep in mind that most were created before remote learning and may require students to have technology or other resources that are unavailable. Are you a memory champion? If not, you are probably like the rest of us – you have fairly good recall when you are attentive and engaged. However, if your mind wanders or you attempt to multi-task or you are anxious, etc., your ability to recall what you are learning diminishes. Try the following exercise, without scrolling down the page! Give yourself 30 seconds to attempt to memorize the following display of 15 symbols. After 30 seconds, look away and write down as many, in order, as you can remember. Then check your accuracy. How well did you do? If you got all 15 correct, you may have the makings of a memory champion! You should be quite pleased with yourself. Most of us, though, don’t do all that well. We need our information to be chunked in order to remember it better. Now try the following exercise, with the same approach – 30 seconds to memorize, look away and write down as many as you can. I’d bet real money on your improvement. When information is presented and studied in chunks, it is much easier to make sense of and remember. This “chunking” is essential for virtual instruction because so many distractions abound. The refrigerator calls, others in the house are making noise, no one is watching, etc. Most experts suggest that virtual lecture should not last more than 3-5 minutes before providing students with an opportunity to process, discuss, retrieve or in some way interact with the information. This is especially important for students who might have a learning disability or attention deficit disorder.
Here’s a list of some of my favorite, simple ways to add processing time with any content:
Before your next virtual lesson review your plan and check to see if you have chunked the content, allowing processing and interaction every 3-5 minutes. Not only will you increase your student engagement, you will increase student outcomes! |
Anne M. BeninghofAnne's mission is to improve instruction through collaboration and the sharing of creative, practical ideas for educators. Archives
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